Various target inventions have been disclosed in the prior art. These include the resetting targets of Doughty U.S. Pat. No. 4,614,345 and Marquardt U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,388, and the portable target assembly of Wade in U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,593. These references disclose various steel reactive targets with centers called bull's-eye which do not provide the novel improvements of applicants' instant response bull's-eye target system herein disclosed.
Applicants, in co-pending application Ser. No. 08/499,106 filed Jul. 6, 1995, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,533,732, have disclosed a target apparatus which provides a visual signal upon impact by a projectile. The target and a portion of the support frame suspended on a pair of pins pivot on the pin supports when a projectile impacts the target and supporting plate. The pivoting of the suspended portion of the support frame activates the visual signal. The contents of that application are incorporated herein by reference. It is desirable to provide a smaller target than disclosed in this co-pending application to better assess the accuracy of an individual firing at the target.
One objective of the invention is to provide a bull's-eye target system with an instant response with minimal reset time and reset effort. A further objective is to provide a target system that is simple to assemble and use, and is economical to manufacture, including standardized replaceable parts. Another objective is to provide a target which resets without individuals traveling down range, and a system with reduced chance for ricochet after projectile impact. A further objective is to provide a response which can be seen or heard by individuals at some distance from the target system. Further objectives and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the FIGURE and description to follow.